The Road Less Traveled By

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

This poem is the all time favorite of two of my dearest friends. So this post is kind of for them. I took this picture a few days ago in our backyard. This is the path that runs down beside the garage to the back gate. I loved how it looked in the sunlight. As soon as I saw it this was the poem that popped into my head (By the way, is it weird that poems pop into my head when I see certain images? Or is that merely an indication of how suited I am to studying literature?) and I knew I would post the two of them together. I realize that this is not a leaf strewn path in a yellow wood, nor is there a second path, but it certainly is the path less traveled. The weeds are growing through the cracks in the sidewalk and the lighting makes it look old, worn, and neglected. And really, it is the less taken path off of our property since the back gate has been broken for a while and you can't actually open it.